A big thank you Maryam for this new very interesting cover from Canada, mailed on April 17, 2012 from the city of Woodstock, Ontario !

The two stamps to the right are part of the annual series "Art Canada", issued on February 23, 2012 (consisting of three stamps), devoted this year to the sculptor Joe Fafard (born 1942), one of Canada's best known artists.

Joe Fafard is well-known for his works inspired by the prairie farms and villages of his childhood in Saskatchewan but also by his relatives or by artistic personalities and politicians.

The works featured here are a cow with "Smoothly She Shifted" (1986-1987) and "Dear Vincent" (1983) in tribute to Vincent Van Gogh. These two sculptures are kept at the Fine Arts Museum of Sherbrooke.

To note that this is one of the first times that Canada Post is devoting its series "Art Canada" to sculptures, painters having been mainly honored in the past.

As in previous years, these stamps have been issued in the same souvenir sheet but also in booklets of six self-adhesive stamps (except the "cow" stamp issued in sheets of 16 gummed stamps).

Maryam has had the very good idea to mail her letter from the town of Woodstock, where a special postmark was affixed. This cancellation is devoted to another Holstein cow, called "Springbank Snow Countess", that lived between 1919 and 1936 and was known to have been a milk producer world champion !

A life-size sculpture of this cow (by the artist Ross Butler) has beside been erected in that city in 1937.

The last two identical stamps to the left are part of the nice definitive series, issued on October 19, 2010, devoted to beneficial insects, to the Large milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) here.